


The Clean-up Job

by Mollygail



Category: White Collar
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 14:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13789962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mollygail/pseuds/Mollygail
Summary: Neal couldn't take it anymore. Something had to be done.





	The Clean-up Job

Not for the first time he thought maybe he was crazy. He could be sleeping. One thing he had come to appreciate since working with Peter was that, for the most part, he could work during the day and sleep at night. After years of alleged criminal activity, where night time work was a necessity, he had gotten used to sleeping through the night. But now he found himself dressed in coveralls, carrying a bag of tools and supplies, sneaking into the parking garage of the Federal building in the middle of the night. Crazy. 

He remembered the first time he thought of pulling this job. Stuck in the van during a long stakeout—the smell of the van had given him a headache and his mind had wandered. He’d had thoughts of a pine scented forest and fresh summer breezes and lilac blossoms. When he bent down to pick up the rubber band ball he had dropped and saw what was growing under the shelf that held the monitors……..thinking about it now made him queasy. 

Finding the van in the garage he looked at his watch and realized he only had five hours to complete his mission. Breaking into the van was a piece of cake. Seriously, shouldn’t the Feds have better security? Logically he should start from the ceiling and work his was down, but the carpet would need time to dry so he had decided to start there and then clean the rest. Years of spilled coffee, deviled ham, jelly filled donut goo……he started to gag. He told himself “don’t think about it, just do the job. You survived prison, you can do this”. 

Vacuum. Extra strength carpet cleaner. Disinfectant. Upholstery cleaner for the chairs. Q-tips and more disinfectant for the computer keyboards. He really should have started earlier………

6:00 am. White Collar conference room:

“Where’s Caffrey? He’s not answering his phone. He knew we were starting surveillance on that money laundering case this morning. Jones, check his tracking data.” 

After a few minutes on the computer Jones had Neal’s location. “Peter, he’s in the building. Maybe he thought we were meeting at the van in the parking garage.”

“Fine, let’s go see if he’s there. Why can’t he follow instructions? He knew I wanted to go over the details of the case first.”

Approaching the surveillance van Peter was expecting to find Neal leaning against the bumper. Certainly he wouldn’t be inside—he hated the smell of the van. But there was no sign of him. Opening the back door of the van something was definitely strange. A smell, but not the usual smell. No smell of stale coffee, mold and sweaty agents. What was it?

“Lilacs, pine forest, and disinfectant cleaner” Diana said. “What happened to this place? Hey, I thought this carpet was black! Now it’s blue. And this chair used to be covered with coffee stains.”

Just then Jones yelled out “hey, I found Caffrey. He’s sleeping up front in the passenger seat, wearing coveralls and rubber gloves. There’s a bag full of cleaning supplies at his feet. Remember when he almost puked last week after he found that moldy donut under the shelf. He kept going on about how prison was cleaner than this and maybe orange was a good color for him after all. I guess he finally snapped. This must have taken him hours to clean”.

“Alright, let’s take him home. I guess he’s done enough work for today.” 

fin.


End file.
